Sunday, August 2nd

Chr. Hansen claims its new wine culture is a 'fantastic launch' that will greatly increase the speed and predictability of malolactic fermentation and remove the need for producers to use sulfites as preservatives.

The trip represents the 14th consecutive trade mission to China organized by the California Wine Institute, but the first time that Sonoma County wines are the focus of the delegation. The journey was six months in the planning

A Mendocino County jury on Wednesday declared it was deadlocked on verdicts in the convoluted case of a Healdsburg winery owner charged with forging signatures on 57 checks while working as the finance officer for Brutocao Cellars in Hopland.

Now a hip, retro throwback of myriad genres, including a depiction of a gas station with pumps old enough to taunt pre-disco days' petrol prices, Tank Garage Winery has a fun vibe and possibly a cure to an eyesore corner that some consider the gateway to Calistoga

I wouldn't call myself an expert, by any means. I will unapologetically drink red with fish and white with lasagna. The App Store has a very nice selection of titles that could help make you seem like an expert to your friends and you won't have spend all that money on special wine appreciation classes. Check out our list of best apps for wine drinkers…

New laws for wineries went into effect on Tuesday without fanfare after Governor Bill Haslam failed to sign them into law during the legislative session. Under the new laws, wineries will now be able to open up satellite stores away from the main winery and they can charge for samples.

The vineyards around Seneca and Cayuga Lake might not look like disaster areas, but the Federal Government recently declared the 19 counties of the Finger Lakes to be just that. Several vineyard owners lost as much as 50 to 100 percent of their crop due to the frost from the last winter, however a lot of them feel as though with some warm weather and a little bit of help, they can still get through.

Ker, a grape and wine industry consultant, who lists vine winter hardiness as one of his areas of research, said that, while the field examinations would not be completed until the end of June, he expected yields for the 2014 harvest would be down to 50-75 percent of the average crop, with some growers having even less depending on site and cultivars grown.

A team at the University of Ljubljana has found a way to attach magnetic nanoparticles to the surface of yeast. With the use of magnets, removing the yeast takes just 15-20 minutes, which IChemE says is more than 4000 times faster than the traditional process.

Authorized by the new farm bill enacted earlier this year, the Regional Conservation Partnership Program is intended to involve the private sector more directly in planning and funding environmental protection initiatives tied to agriculture.

Temperatures in the area on Tuesday rose into the 90s with winds up to 20 mph. The roughly 700 firefighters battling the blaze are also being challenged by the steep terrain and unusually dry conditions, officials said.

The council's vote was 3-1, with Councilmember Greg Pitts voting in dissent and Councilmember Mario Sculatti recusing himself because he holds a lease within 500 feet of the space. "Are there too many tasting rooms? Maybe," said Mayor Ann Nevero. "But I'm not an expert, and I certainly don't think that the government … is so great that we can figure out the right number."

A fire of undetermined origin burned two acres of vegetation Tuesday evening on a hillside off Newell Drive in American Canyon. The blaze, which started near the Vintage Ranch subdivision east of Highway 29, just outside the city limits, was reported at about 7:45 p.m.

Wilshire Gun Range, a planned 40,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility, could soon be serving up alcoholic beverages to its gun toting customers, strictly after firing off their rounds, after the city council voted 6 to 3 in favour of the licence on Tuesday, according to a report by okcfox.com.

Whether you can taste the difference between mountain and valley floor fruit is a question of experience and palate, but you'd know the difference between the two for sure if you compare financial and operational data.

In one experiment, the researchers found that people poured more white wine than red into a glass, for the simplest of reasons: It's just easier to see red wine, which means it's easier to tell how much you've poured.

Hybrid beverages are on trend and instead of making consumers choose between beer or wine, Comax Flavors created the non-alcoholic "Wine-Beer" flavor collection, which features Muscat Grape, Madeira Wine, and Muscato Wine flavors crafted specifically for beer.

The Ohio wine and grape industry released its 2012 Economic Impact report, which finds that Ohio's grape and wine industry has a significant impact of $786 million on the state's economy, a 34% increase from the 2008 economic study released in 2010.

Chinese inspectors and French wine producers, namely Château Lafite-Rothschild, have agreed to a special label program called the Protected Eco-Origin Product initiative. Called PEOP for short, this is to protect against wine fraud by including on the labels a number of visible and invisible codes, including the QR codes that consumers can use their smart phones to photograph and verify through the originating winery.

More than 10 percent of Oregon wineries are strongly considering selling in the next five years, according to a study released Wednesday. The number jumps to 31 percent for wineries that are "open to a sale under the right circumstances."

In a meeting this week at the Arbau-Durso winery in Russia's wine-producing region of Krasnodar, between the Caspian Sea and Ukraine, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev set the aim of boosting the total territory of Russian vineyards to 140,000 hectares in 2020 from 90,000 hectares now.

"It's a huge win for the industry and for economic development in South Carolina," said state Rep. Jim Merrill, R-Charleston. "Craft beer is up and coming in our state and is a cottage industry. This is going to allow us to compete with North Carolina and Georgia."

Frosts in Chile, droughts in California and the Languedoc and the boom in fruit-flavoured wines in France is having a knock-on effect on bulk wine prices, according to the latest data from Murphy Wine Company.

The Hollywood star and his fiancee Angelina Jolie - with who he raises children Maddox, 12, Pax, 10, Zahara, nine, Shiloh, seven, and twins Knox and Vivienne, five - bought French winery Miraval in 2012 and the 50-year-old hunk loves learning more about the vineyard and the winemaking process as he finds it so relaxing